ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that the underpinning and the mechanism of the shift from hermeneutics to anthropology which started with Saint Augustine, reached its peak in Immanuel Kant and which has come to underpin much liberal political thought and cognate juridical notions about autonomy. Freedom and Autonomy, while distinct, are also related notions. Freedom does not imply autonomy, but autonomy without some underlying freedom would be ‘as a noisy bell or a clanging cymbal’ it would be noise without substance. But freedom is a far from unproblematic notion. The most general level of cosmic myths are theo-genetic, describing the ways in which the gods come into being, cosmo-genetic, the way in which the world or universe is made, and anthropo-genetic, the ways in which the people are made. Willing, as an anthropological possibility, as a power to act into the world seems to flourish best when there has been some conception, albeit thin, of individuality and inward distinctness.
